A sport is an organized, competitive, entertaining, and skillful activity requiring commitment, strategy, and fair play, in which a winner can be defined by objective means. Generally speaking, a sport is a game based in physical athleticism.
Sports and sporting competitions are governed by a set of rules or customs. Physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first often define the result of a sporting competition. However, the degree of skill and performance in some sports, such as diving, dressage and figure skating, is judged according to well-defined criteria.
There are artifacts and structures that suggest that the Chinese engaged in sporting activities as early as 2000 BC. Traces of the earliest sports activities, such as hunting, archery and rowing race, can be seen from some bronze ware of the late Neolithic Age as well as from other articles. For example, artifacts such as a lacquered wooden comb of the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) feature an ancient Chinese sports activity called “jiaodi.” Of early origin, it is a game similar to wrestling of modern times. The ancient “jiaodi” was performed by athletes wearing ox horns and wrestling with each other imitating wild oxen. Various sports activities can be found in historic expressions such as mural paintings, stone paintings, brick paintings, pottery figurines and poems.
Monuments to the Pharaohs indicate that a number of sports, including swimming and fishing, were well-developed and regulated several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt. Other Egyptian sports included javelin throwing, high jump, and wrestling. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zourkhaneh had a close connection to the warfare skills. Among other sports that originate in ancient Persia are polo and jousting.
A wide range of sports were already established by the time of Ancient Greece and the military culture and the development of sports in Greece influenced one another considerably. Sports became such a prominent part of their culture that the Greeks created the Olympic Games, which in ancient times were held every four years in a small village in the Peloponnesus called Olympia.
Sports have been increasingly organized and regulated from the time of the ancient Olympics up to the present century. Industrialization has brought increased leisure time to the citizens of developed and developing countries, leading to more time for citizens to attend and follow spectator sports, greater participation in athletic activities, and increased accessibility. These trends continued with the advent of mass media and global communication. Professionalism became prevalent, further adding to the increase in sport's popularity, as sports fans began following the exploits of professional athletes through radio, television, and the internet—all while enjoying the exercise and competition associated with amateur participation in sports.
Records are kept and updated for most sports at the highest levels, while failures and accomplishments are widely publicized in sport news. While conduct may vary, sports participants are expected to display good sportsmanship, and observe standards of conduct such as being respectful of opponents and officials, and congratulating the winner when losing.
Modern fishing contests or tournaments are common recreational competitions on lakes, bays, rivers and larger saltwater bodies, generally focusing on the number of fish of a specific species caught or the weight (combined or otherwise) of the fish caught, during a specific time period on a single body of water.
As well as being a form of recreation for the participants, much sport is played in front of an audience. Most professional sport is played in a theatre of some kind; be it a stadium, arena, golf course, race track, or the open road, with provision for the (often paying) public. Large television or radio audiences are also commonly attracted, with rival broadcasters bidding large amounts of money for the rights to show certain fixtures.
The football World Cup attracts a global television audience of hundreds of millions; the 2006 final alone attracted an estimated worldwide audience of well over 700 million. The Cricket World Cup is another sporting event which attracts a global audience. The 2007 Cricket World Cup attracted about 2.3 Billion viewers all over the world. In the United States, the championship game of the NFL, the Super Bowl, has become one of the most watched television broadcasts of the year. Super Bowl Sunday is a de facto national holiday in America; the viewership being so great that in 2007 advertising space was reported as being sold at $2.6 m for a 30 second slot.